Monday, March 23, 2015

We've moved! Finally after two years of brewing in what was essentially a garage, we've rented and moved into a large space to continue the growth of Cerveceria Dos Aves. No more claustrophobic, super heated brew sessions.

The front of the new Cerveceria Dos Aves

For those of you reading who participated in my Indiegogo crowd funding program a couple years ago, I want to thank you again for your belief in me and this project and show you that your money has definitely helped me get this business off the ground. Considering how little money we had to begin with, and the small amount through contributions, we've been able to double the expansion (sales) each year and expect to continue with that kind of growth. We are still cobbling together larger equipment as we can afford it including two larger plastic fermenters. Since we don't have a glycol chilling system in place yet we had to construct a cold room for fermentation. In the picture below you can see the cold room in the back. I'll be hanging a door soon along with insulation in the ceiling. We'll use the top of the cold room for storage for now.
I was in the middle of bottling some pale ale when I took this picture but you can see our puny brew system on the right hand side which looks exceptionally small in this space but we hope to have the money soon to install a 3 bbl frankenbrew system, probably one kettle at a time. We've received quotes from several welders in nearby Queretero that seem affordable.
In the mean time, we also installed PVC water pipes going up the wall to a gravity fed water supply and reverse osmosis filtered water supply that leads to our pump system. In addition, a 600 liter water holding tank (not shown in this pic.) that we will be using for chilling. It basically will be pumped through a pre-chiller (copper coil in ice bath) then through a plate chiller and back up to holding tank. Theoretically we will be able to continue to chill the wort no matter what size batch as long as we chill the water before it enters the plate chiller. We're testing this idea tomorrow using boiling water instead of wort. This was affordable and will help us reduce our water use. We put in additional electrical outlets all around, originally we only had one.

This initial phase of work is mostly complete and I'm anxious to get back to brewing. It's been a couple of weeks and we are running desperately low on beer.

If there are any kind souls out there that previously pitched in money during my Indiegogo campaign, or not, and you are compelled to help a little more with this small but growing brewery it would be greatly appreciated. You can go to my Pay-Pal link by clicking on the Donate button on the side bar to the left. Any amount would help a lot. Thank you all.